


Lossless Compression

by interabang



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Epitaph Verse, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-22 01:31:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13753428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interabang/pseuds/interabang
Summary: It's supposed to be a quick, secretive visit to Safe Haven - until Victor finds out T is sick.





	Lossless Compression

He’s only coming back to Safe Haven, he tells himself, to exchange intel for supplies.

 

Normally, he steers clear of Priya, knowing she doesn’t want to see him the way he is - but then he gets word that Paul is at Tsetsang House, and Victor can’t make up an excuse to avoid it.

 

His heartbeat quickens, overriding his current drive as he walks up to her door.

 

After rapping on the screen frame five times in a rhythmic beat, Paul lets him in, polite but not overtly friendly.

 

Unwrapping the Velcro around his gloves and tugging them off one by one, Victor makes his way into the kitchen as Paul fills the silence with vague updates.

 

It’s maddeningly difficult, even with his drive locked in, for Victor to pretend he desperately doesn’t want to ask where Priya and T are, how they’re doing.

 

He asks about Echo, careful to stay away from the Polaroids Priya had stuck to the fridge door.  

 

“She’s out. On, uh, walkabout,” Paul says, his gaze shifting toward the front door. Victor rolls his eyes, snorting. Paul’s good people, but he’s always been a terrible liar.

 

“Tony.”

 

Victor starts, knowing that voice. He turns around and there, right before him, with the sunlight illuminating her from behind, is Priya, standing in the hallway.

 

She’s got dark circles around her eyes, her cheeks are splotchy, and her hair’s a tangled nest. The mere sight of her makes Victor’s breath catch in his throat.

 

“What happened?” he asks in a clipped, professional tone, immediately shoving his half-formed imprint to the forefront. It’s the coward’s way out, but he doesn’t want to crumble in front of her, not now, when she clearly needs him so much that she’s not even glaring at his USB drives.

 

“He’s sick, Tony. Very sick.”

 

He starts strapping on his gloves. “What is is?”

 

She sighs and lets out a small, wavering sob, pushing her hair out of her face. “The doctor from River House said it’s just dehydration, but Echo thinks it’s Scarlet Fever, and I think she’s right. She went to Neuropolis to find antibiotics, but...” Priya bites her chapped lips.

 

“She hasn’t been back in days,” Paul finishes.

 

Behind his imprint, Victor wants nothing more than to go to Priya, wrap his arms around her and tell her everything will be fine.

 

He curses and snaps his attention back toward Paul. “She’s _alone_?”

 

Deep lines of worry are carved in Ballard’s face. “Said she could handle it. Told me to stay here, hold down the fort. Didn’t think it’d take her this long.”

 

Victor sighs. “I’ll get the map and take my men over there right now. Priya...” When he looks at her, he’s almost amazed that she keeps her gaze on him, eyes bleary, but not devoid of hope.

 

“I know,” she says, her voice clearer. “I’ll keep him as comfortable as possible while you’re gone.”

 

She leaves without a backward glance, and Victor’s heart drops further than where the damned Dollhouse sits.

 

He takes out his port, clicks it into place, and is barely aware of T’s bedroom door closing shut as his neurons spark, his posture shifts. His fractured tracker imprint sets in, and he lets out a long, satisfied sigh.

 

When he opens his eyes, Paul is gone as well.

 

 

 

Victor finds Echo holed up in the bombed out shell of what used to be a two-story pediatrician’s office, surrounded by Butchers. Judging from the fresh bodies scattered around the walls, she’s taken out more than a few, but she’s walking funny and her left pant leg is soaked with blood. She managed to make a tourniquet, though Victor knows _she_ knows she can’t go far on her own. 

 

The Tech Heads quickly dispatch the remaining Butchers, and Yankee minds Echo’s leg as he lifts her. She just screams at him, “ _The bag. Don’t leave it_!” and Victor takes it very gently, like how he’d held T for the first time.

 

He looks at Echo, and she looks at him, and they know they don’t need to give voice to their gratitude.

 

He sends the truck into overdrive two seconds after everyone piles in, ripping out of Neuropolis and back into the Wasteland as he ignores Kilo’s cries - “You’re gonna kill us!” - as the others sit quietly in the backseat, muttering, but not to the point of mutiny. Yet. Victor knows that _they_ know how serious the situation is, and though they have their own goals and reasons for plugging in, right now, their leader’s needs come first.

 

When they reach Safe Haven, Echo insists on walking out of the truck on her own, carrying the duffel bag. She smacks Romeo’s and Yankee’s arms aside when they try to help her, and Victor smiles a bit at her nerve.

 

She hobbles ahead of the group as Adelle bursts out of the front door of Priya’s house. Without speaking, Adelle grabs the bag, cups Echo’s face and kisses the top of her head in welcome, and rushes her back inside. Victor reaches out to grab the porch door before it swings back shut in his face.

 

He waits outside T’s bedroom, pacing for an hour. Then he heads into the kitchen where his group is breaking bread with Paul, and Topher sits in the corner pretending to read a picture book. Victor watches him for a while, and Topher’s actually staring at the not-so-welcome visitors, his eyes darting between each Tech Head. Paul’s got Echo’s leg elevated on a chair, and a bullet rests on the table as he checks her for infections. Echo pulls annoyed faces, but doesn’t shove him away, like Victor’s seen her do before.

 

She glances up at him, her face hopeful, but he shakes his head. “Too early to tell.”

 

Five minutes later he finds himself on the front porch, his hand going up to the drive in his head. _Not yet_ , he tells himself.

 

He uses the outhouse, then checks out the garden, frowning at the meager amount of crops. He touches a yellow tomato, briefly, and lets go.

 

He paces around the porch until the sun’s just about gone, and Romeo comes outside to smoke one of his shitty hand-rolled cigarettes. He’s really there to inform Victor that the others are getting restless, wondering if they’re going to have to bunk at their least favorite place for the night.

 

The way his lips curl in distaste does not go unnoticed by Victor, but he ignores it and says, “Depends on what we hear.”

 

Romeo rolls his eyes and pitches the cherry. He stomps on it, then stomps back inside to tell everyone to get comfortable. Victor hears their groans, and soon they all file out toward the truck, Kilo shooting him a dirty look.

 

He puts his hands on the porch rail, facing away from the truck and toward the garden, and for the first time in years, he prays to a god he’d given up on long ago.

 

Four hours later, and after three attempts of seeing his son - Adelle had barred him and to her credit, she looked frustrated at having to keep him out - Priya joins him on the porch. Victor’s half-asleep on his feet, but he jerks awake at the sound of footsteps nearing him.

 

Her face has a sheen of sweat covering it and her cheeks are hollow, but she’s smiling.

 

“He’s okay?” Victor asks, daring to hope.

 

She nods. “He’s very weak and can’t have more than fluids for the next few weeks, and he’ll have to be monitored closely, but... Yes. Echo just gave her prognosis. He’s out of the woods.”

 

Victor nods and lowers his head in gratitude, tears welling in his eyes. “Can I see him? I understand if I can’t, but I just – I need to. Please.”

 

Priya peers at his face, barely able to discern his studs by the light of the half-moon and porch lamps. “Do you have anything in right now?”

 

He looks right at her and says, “I’ll take it out.”

 

She seems too tired to be disappointed. Or maybe her hope for him had died down too much for her to be disappointed anymore. He almost wishes she’d be angry at him, like she used to be, but this isn’t the time for him to be selfish. He focuses on the boy, on how much he wants to see him again.

 

“Fine. Take it out and you can come inside.” She pauses at the doorway, and says, without turning back. “Leave your necklace on the table.”

 

“All right.”

 

He counts down a minute after the screen door creaks loudly and shuts behind her, and he steels himself for the next part.

 

He twists the input port, gasping as the Search and Rescue imprint leaks out of his mind and back into the drive. He sets it down on the table, next to the bullet.

 

After removing his necklace and armor and putting them down too, he slowly makes his way back toward T’s room.

 

Adelle’s gone – probably sleeping in Topher’s room, as usual – but Echo’s sitting with Priya next to the small bed, as she cools T’s forehead with a damp washcloth.

 

He looks so small, it almost hurts to see him. His hair, dark like his father’s, is matted against his skin.

 

And said father just keeps _standing_ right there in the doorway, staring at him, his throat suddenly so tight it’s hard for him to draw breath, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

 

He barely registers Echo saying she’ll keep watch over him. She tells Priya, in a low voice, that Adelle went to rest, and will return in a couple hours. Priya whispers back to her that _she_ should rest and Echo shrugs, saying, “Gotta have someone watching him. Roma means no offense, but Taffy does, and they both say you  _definitely_ need some sleep.”

 

Priya refuses but Echo says, “Go. I’m half dead, but I could kick your ass without wakin’ up T.” She flicks her eyes up toward the new arrival. 

 

Slowly, as if in a dream, he steps forward and into the room. He wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around his son, tell him everything’s going to be okay, but he knows that won’t help one bit, so he does what he can, without any drives, without anyone else telling him what’s the right thing to do.

 

Gently, tentatively, he puts his hands on Priya’s shoulders. He can’t describe how it feels to not sense her shudder away from his touch.

 

Eventually, after a long moment of silence, she lets him guide her out of the room.

 

He takes her to her bed across the hall and she gets under the covers like she’s decades older. He blows out the candles on the bedside table and turns to head out of her room, out of her house, and out to his truck.

 

But Priya seizes him by the arm and, looking at him as if he might be a ghost, she asks him to stay with her.

 

He slips into bed beside her as if the last two years were a dream, and she curls around him as he lies on his back. His arm goes around her waist, natural as breathing, and he sighs, staring up at the ceiling, hearing a lone cricket chirp outside.

 

Priya murmurs for him to wake her up in two hours and he says, “Echo and Adelle got it covered. You need this, Priya.”

 

And when he looks at her, anticipating a rebuttal and maybe even to be shoved out of bed, she’s already asleep.

 

He smiles, and closes his eyes as he allows his muscles to relax.

 

It’s the best rest Tony’s gotten in weeks.

 


End file.
